Devoured (Devoured, #1)(34)

I’m so spellbound that it takes me a moment to realize that at certain lines of the song, Lucas’s eyes drag to the far left of the stage, seeking me out. Making me feel like I’m the only person in this crowded bar. When I grind my teeth together in frustration, Lucas’s eyes narrow a fraction and he shakes his head slowly to each side.

Drawing in a deep breath, I do the only other thing I can do. I sing along with the rest of the crowd. I ignore the wetness that has built up in the lacy black panties I’m wearing.

Panties that Lucas himself had touched and laid out for me to put on.





CHAPTER TWELVE





There are at least twenty YouTube videos of Lucas’s performance circulating the Internet by time I wake up at 7am on the dot the next morning. There are already—and I shit you not—death threats about the “red-headed cunt” Lucas was serenading on one of the Your Toxic Sequel fan sites.

And I find out about all of this because Tori sends me links, messages, and enough texts to make me want to turn off my phone.

Finally, I just suck it up and answer. It’s 5:30am in California. “There are pictures of you with Lucas Wolfe online,” she says in a monotone voice. “Why are there pictures of you with Lucas Wolfe on the Internet?”

“I-I . . .” I’m stuttering ridiculously, staring down in horror at my computer screen at the video of Lucas performing, and wondering who else has seen these videos. You know, besides every rabid Lucas Wolfe fan. For once I feel fortunate that Tomas, my boss, is such a media snob and refuses to read gossip magazines. I don’t need this getting back to him—not when I’m supposed to be here in Nashville to take care of my Gram. Not when—

I feel a sinking feeling in my chest, and I ball my hand into a fist, massaging it over my heart. What if my grandmother sees this? It would literally break her heart.

“Sienna, talk to me,” Tori says pleadingly.

“I . . . I work for him,” I admit.

And just as I expect, she starts freaking out. She starts doing the exact thing that made me avoid telling her about my deal with Lucas in the first place. “Since when? Why? Sienna . . . he’s trying to take your grandmother’s goddamn house away. How could you work for him? Why would you work for hi—”

“For the love of God, shut up for just one second so I can think,” I snap. I hear a sharp gasp for air on the other end, and I immediately feel horrible for barking at her. In all the time that I’ve known Tori, I’ve never once raised my voice at her.

I’ve never spoke to anyone like that besides Lucas Wolfe.

“Tori . . . I’m sorry,” I whisper.

She sounds dazed when she speaks. “I’m actually hovering somewhere between really f*cking irritated you told me to shut up and being impressed. Sienna, what’s really going on? Please . . . I’m your best friend.”

I cry as I tell her. I leave nothing out except for Lucas’s sexual habits, and when I’m done all she’s able to say is “Wow” over and over and over again until I tell her that she’s giving me a headache.

“You’ve got to be the most . . . selfless and ridiculously awesome person I know. To be doing something like that with someone like him.”

I don’t like the way her tone implies that he’s a bad person. Hell, I don’t like the way I’m so willing to jump to his defense, but I do it anyway. “He’s not all bad,” I say, my voice sounding totally convincing.

“Oh. My. God.”

Thinking that there’s been a new article put out about me and Lucas, I frantically refresh Google news search I have open on my screen. “What? What?”

“You’re in love with him.”

The second those words come out of her mouth, sounding like an accusation and a curse and a crime all at once, I wish she had said there was a new set of rumors instead. I’m not in love with Lucas. Completely in lust, yes, but not in love.

Never in love.

“That’s ridiculous I don’t know him well enough to love him.”

“Then, he’s got to have the most—” Tori’s words are cut off mid-sentence by the sound of my cell phone beeping. I pull it from my ear and my heart launches into my throat, gagging me, when I see that it’s Seth. God, this can’t be a good thing.

I promise Tori that I’ll call her back and she warns me that she’ll fly to Nashville tonight, spending our rent money and leaving us homeless, if I don’t. When I click over to Seth, he’s already cursing. Seething.

“You lied to Gram so you could go f*ck the douchebag who bought her house?”

“Seth, I—”

But he doesn’t want to let me get a word in.

“You’re disgusting. Guess you’re more like her than you let on, huh? Don’t worry . . . what you’re doing won’t ever be big enough news to reach Gram and I sure as hell won’t tell her. Maybe if you’re lucky he’ll—”

My heartbeat picks up wildly when Lucas plucks my phone out of my hand and jabs the END button. “You’re going to sit there and let him talk to you like that?” he demands. “That’s your brother, right? The skinny little prick with the big mouth from court?”

I never realized Seth had ever said anything to Lucas, and I glance down at my lap, at my hands. “He was angry,” I whisper.